10:00am to 12:00pm

“I don’t want to go to school,” said the 8-year-old after an extended weekend.

These are typical statements of anxious children, leaving parents at times wondering how to respond. Reassurance and empowering statements may help some children, yet others may only feel misunderstood and angry given the same responses. This program will focus on the nature of anxiety and how parents can help their children navigate normal childhood and adolescent anxiety. It will also address when anxiety could approach criteria of an anxiety disorder and what parents can do. Parents will learn about some of the standard treatments for clinical anxiety disorders for children and adolescents and how they can be an integral part of the treatment plan. A Powerpoint lecture will be interspersed with experiential exercises that parents can do with children and adolescents to relieve anxiety, and will conclude with a series of small group discussion topics.

Presenter: Anne Marie M. Ramos, LCSW, RPT-S, has worked in New York and New Jersey for over 34 years as a clinical social worker and a clinical supervisor for families and children. She has an extensive background in play therapy and is a Registered Play Therapist–Supervisor through the Association for Play Therapy. She is the author of Parents as Healers: Bringing the Caregiver into the Healing Process Through Play and Home-Based Strategies (August 2017), available on Amazon. She currently Director of Children’s Services of Jewish Family Service and Children’s Center in Clifton, N.J.